Items tagged with chips

Researchers at IBM's Zurich Research Laboratory have developed a new technique that gives a whole new meaning to water cooling: Circulating water inside the chip itself. The concept is not meant for today's CPUs, but actually for the chips of tomorrow. Historically, CPU performance improvements have largely been a function of generating faster computational speeds. But higher speeds require smaller manufacturing processes and generate more heat--thus trying to eke out more MHz from CPU design advances becomes increasingly difficult and less efficient. This is one of the reasons why CPU manufacturers...Read more...

Amazonian beetles, to be more precise. Researchers have long understood that if they could produce a photonic crystal, a diamond-like structure that would allow light to be shunted around inside instead of electricity, that they would be able to make superfast optical computers that used little power and wouldn't generate heat the way your current chip does. They could even envision the structure necessary, they just couldn't produce it. But then someone noticed that the iridescent scales of a lowly beetle had the structure they were seeking all along. When the researchers scoped the scales, they...Read more...

As many of you are no doubt aware, Intel is planning to officially release a new mainstream chipset in a few weeks, the P45. From a feature standpoint, the new P45 is somewhat similar to last year's P35. The P45, however, will have official support for PCI Express 2.0, with a more flexible lane configuration for multi-GPU graphics, and the chipset itself is being manufactured at 65nm as opposed to 90nm. Using the more advanced process to build the chips should result in lower power consumption and lower operating temperatures as well. The P45 will also be paired up with...Read more...

As many of you are no doubt aware, Intel is planning to officially release a new mainstream chipset in a few weeks, the P45. From a feature standpoint, the new P45 is somewhat similar to last year's P35. The P45, however, will have official support for PCI Express 2.0, with a more flexible lane configuration for multi-GPU graphics, and the chipset itself is being manufactured at 65nm as opposed to 90nm. Using the more advanced process to build the chips should result in lower power consumption and lower operating temperatures as well. The P45 will also be...Read more...

AMD has released its product roadmap for the next two years and the company appears to have gone core crazy. Plans for several multi-core chip releases over the next two years will culminate in a 12-core CPU to be released in the first half of 2010. The first new product from AMD will be code-named "Shanghai," and is expected to see the light of day in the second half of this year. This will be AMD's first 45nm sever processor, and will support HyperTransport 3.0 as well as sporting a whopping 6MB of Level-3 cache. Shanghai will have four cores.Next at bat will be "Istanbul," due out in the second...Read more...

Rumor has it that the Intel's next generation P45 chipset has hit a snag that will cause boards to ship in June instead of May.“The delay of the chipset is due to problems over compatibility between the chipset's PCI Express x16 port and graphics cards, noted the sources, adding that Intel has notified them that the problem should be solved and ready to launch 2-4 weeks behind the original launch schedule.”Despite the delay Intel and their partners are still expected to demo or at least display P-45 based boards at Computex....Read more...

Just in case you missed it, we’re hitting the news page to let you all know that we have just posted a new article here at HotHardware in which we evaluate the features and performance of AMD’s new 780G Chipset with integrated graphics and the new low-power Athlon 64 4850e processor. Here's a snip from the piece...“The 780G platform launching today combines the core logic expertise and graphics technology brought in from ATI with AMD’s latest low-power Athlon X2, yielding a very fast, very inexpensive platform that won’t rack up a substantial energy tab. Additionally, the chipset supports...Read more...

We generally don’t use integrated graphics. You might not use integrated graphics. But there are more motherboards with integrated graphics sold than discrete cards, according to data published last year by Jon Peddie Research. That means you probably have friends and family buying systems with built-in graphics engines. Guess what happens when the work day is done and you take them into battle with you through a little Enemy Territory or Company of Heroes? Poor performance likely gets them killed over and over. Talk about a real bummer. We're WoW junkies ourselves, and you...Read more...

“U.S. and European customs officers seized more than 360,000 counterfeit computer chips and network components in a joint operation late last year, officials said Friday.”While 360,000 certainly seems like a large number, that makes one wonder how many bad units were in distribution altogether. A good piece of advice for shoppers looking to buy the genuine article: If a deal looks too good to be true, it probably is. We suggest sticking to well-known retailers/e-tailers with a good return policy as they're likely to spot these frauds before they even get into their warehouse....Read more...

NVIDIA is the sort of company that can and will capitalize on opportunities quickly, whether it be market or product related, or something as simple as logistics. As such, in traditional fashion, with the huge insurgence of press and media swooping down on the never-ending sensory overload that is the city of Las Vegas and the CES show, NVIDIA took the opportunity to arrange an editor's day just prior to the opening day of CES. With a venue like this and a captive audience to boot it's a proverbial no-brainer and so we convened at the New York-New York hotel and casino for an update...Read more...

Rumors have been swirling about the future of VIA's CPU and platform groups for several weeks. Initial rumors claimed that VIA was simply going to sell both groups if they could find an interested buyer. It now appears that VIA is merging both teams under the banner of the CPU team."The company will still provide support from AMD platforms while continuing the support older Intel products that are not impacted by patent issues, the paper noted.Due to client demand, the company has not completely given up on negotiating with Intel for a patent contract, however, even if the company does...Read more...

Intel has been performing nearly flawlessly of late, but a rumor has surfaced regarding their allegedly revised release schedule. At this time it is only a rumor, and shouldn't be taken as fact until we hear more. Allegedly Intel's 45 nm High-K isn't working too well with low-end chips.“The problem with this one is that changing the process like that would basically need a complete re-layout of the chip. Unless this was planned from day one, the effort involved would be huge, expensive, and very unlikely to happen.The next bit is sort of related, word is trickling out that Intel scrapped...Read more...

The onslaught of new product releases for the holiday season continues, with the launch of NVIDIA's nForce 700 series of chipsets. Just in case you skimmed past the fresh link at the top of the page, we’re here to let you all know that we’ve just posted a new article in which we evaluate the features and performance of NVIDIA’s nForce 780i SLI chipset using the brand new Asus P5N-T Deluxe motherboard. We compare its performance to the nForce 680i SLI and X38 chipsets, outline the 780i SLI’s new features, and talk a bit about the mainstream 750i SLI chipset as well. Click...Read more...

The much anticipated 45 nanometer scale Penryn chip from Intel will be formally announced today in at an event in San Francisco. Shrinking circuit size from 65 nanometer is great, but the big news about the processor might be what it's made from. Instead of silicon dioxide, the Penryn will be made from a material called hafnium. The new materials for making transistors, meanwhile, can increase their switching speeds by more than 20% while reducing their power consumption by about 30%, Intel estimates. Intel's latest chip designs have other features to raise efficiency. Performance increases,...Read more...